The AI Con authors Emily M. Bender (Professor of Linguistics, University of Washington) and Alex Hanna (Director of Research, Distributed AI Research Institute) break down a #NYT opinion piece that exemplifies hype laundering: how AI industry narratives get legitimized through respected voices in prestigious outlets.

The article is "Stop Worrying, and Let A.I. Help Save Your Life" by Dr. Robert Wachter, chair of the Department of Medicine at #UCSF, published in the New York Times on January 19, 2026.

Dr. Wachter admits he's replacing professional medical consultations with colleagues—what physicians call "curbside consults"- with ChatGPT queries. He claims AI's input is "virtually always useful," though he admits it's sometimes "just plain wrong." Emily responds: "People who really should know better have fallen for this." Alex notes the absurdity: "This seems like really a weird kind of approach to medical practice... Maybe someone who is concerned about their different medical conditions and had no place to turn, but someone at UCSF. I've been to UCSF. That's very alarming."

Wachter provides zero peer-reviewed studies, no outcome data, no comparative metrics. Just personal anecdotes claiming the tools work. Emily points out he's demonstrating "no evidence-based practice of checking like how well does this work and also how does it impact the work of physicians when they're using it."

The accountability problem is central. Alex observes that with a human colleague, "you would actually know it's coming from them and there's some accountability if they give you some just wild advice." With LLMs? No one is responsible when the answer is wrong. Emily: "The point isn't that the answers are unreliable. Is that there's no accountability for the answers."

She also raises automation bias concerns: "If you review the output, are you also reviewing the things that you didn't get to because it didn't come out as output?" The system's omissions may be as dangerous as its errors.

Wachter is against "overly restrict[ing] A.I. tools" by "setting an impossibly high bar." Classic regulatory capture language. Emily: "I want all medical devices to be tightly regulated."

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/2687163982 (just the video stream https://d2vi6trrdongqn.cloudfront.net/bc9948ab01f26c79a170_dair_institute_317110603102_1770049612/720p60/index-dvr.m3u8)

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/19/opinion/ai-health-medical-care.html

#ChatGPT ( #OpenAI) is #Trump's biggest donor, and #ICE uses ChatGPT. It's time to quit. http://quitgpt.org/

#theaicon #aihype #openai #chatgpt #publichealth

The AI Con authors Emily M. Bender (Professor of Linguistics, University of Washington) and Alex Hanna (Director of Research, Distributed AI Research Institute) break down a #NYT opinion piece that exemplifies hype laundering: how AI industry narratives get legitimized through respected voices in prestigious outlets.

The article is "Stop Worrying, and Let A.I. Help Save Your Life" by Dr. Robert Wachter, chair of the Department of Medicine at #UCSF, published in the New York Times on January 19, 2026.

Dr. Wachter admits he's replacing professional medical consultations with colleagues—what physicians call "curbside consults"- with ChatGPT queries. He claims AI's input is "virtually always useful," though he admits it's sometimes "just plain wrong." Emily responds: "People who really should know better have fallen for this." Alex notes the absurdity: "This seems like really a weird kind of approach to medical practice... Maybe someone who is concerned about their different medical conditions and had no place to turn, but someone at UCSF. I've been to UCSF. That's very alarming."

Wachter provides zero peer-reviewed studies, no outcome data, no comparative metrics. Just personal anecdotes claiming the tools work. Emily points out he's demonstrating "no evidence-based practice of checking like how well does this work and also how does it impact the work of physicians when they're using it."

The accountability problem is central. Alex observes that with a human colleague, "you would actually know it's coming from them and there's some accountability if they give you some just wild advice." With LLMs? No one is responsible when the answer is wrong. Emily: "The point isn't that the answers are unreliable. Is that there's no accountability for the answers."

She also raises automation bias concerns: "If you review the output, are you also reviewing the things that you didn't get to because it didn't come out as output?" The system's omissions may be as dangerous as its errors.

Wachter is against "overly restrict[ing] A.I. tools" by "setting an impossibly high bar." Classic regulatory capture language. Emily: "I want all medical devices to be tightly regulated."

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/2687163982 (just the video stream https://d2vi6trrdongqn.cloudfront.net/bc9948ab01f26c79a170_dair_institute_317110603102_1770049612/720p60/index-dvr.m3u8)

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/19/opinion/ai-health-medical-care.html

#ChatGPT ( #OpenAI) is #Trump's biggest donor, and #ICE uses ChatGPT. It's time to quit. http://quitgpt.org/

#theaicon #aihype #openai #chatgpt #publichealth

Why I Lost Faith in Kagi https://d-shoot.net/kagi.html #Kagi #AI #AIHype

Why I Lost Faith in Kagi https://d-shoot.net/kagi.html #Kagi #AI #AIHype

Ernesto’s conflict: thinker v builder? On the “trap of pragmatism” in the age of (statistical pattern matching mistaken for) AI

[…] I am currently writing much more, and more complicated software than ever, yet I feel I am not growing as an engineer at all. When I started meditating on why I felt “stuck,” I realized I am starving The Thinker.

[…] “Vibe coding” satisfies the Builder. It feels great to see to pass from idea to reality in a fraction of a time that would take otherwise. But it has drastically cut the times I need to came up with creative solutions for technical problems. I know many people who are purely Builders, for them this era is the best thing that ever happened. But for me, something is missing.

https://www.jernesto.com/articles/thinking_hard

AI is challenging not only how we work, but who we become through using it. The Mainländer quote at the end suggests to me that the author, Ernesto, is not optimistic about this transformation…

#aihype #theaicon

Ernesto’s conflict: thinker v builder? On the “trap of pragmatism” in the age of (statistical pattern matching mistaken for) AI

[…] I am currently writing much more, and more complicated software than ever, yet I feel I am not growing as an engineer at all. When I started meditating on why I felt “stuck,” I realized I am starving The Thinker.

[…] “Vibe coding” satisfies the Builder. It feels great to see to pass from idea to reality in a fraction of a time that would take otherwise. But it has drastically cut the times I need to came up with creative solutions for technical problems. I know many people who are purely Builders, for them this era is the best thing that ever happened. But for me, something is missing.

https://www.jernesto.com/articles/thinking_hard

AI is challenging not only how we work, but who we become through using it. The Mainländer quote at the end suggests to me that the author, Ernesto, is not optimistic about this transformation…

#aihype #theaicon

The bots can rent humans now, umm.

#ai #aihype

Apparently the AI hype is now trying to turn the terminal into another urinal.

#ai #aihype #vibecoding

[…] at least 70% of the AI hype that’s bottom-up — eg, excited users — is people who never learned how to actually use their computer suddenly realizing the computer can do things for them

https://bsky.app/profile/amyhoy.bsky.social/post/3la6iaxohs22x

#theaicon #aihype

[…] at least 70% of the AI hype that’s bottom-up — eg, excited users — is people who never learned how to actually use their computer suddenly realizing the computer can do things for them

https://bsky.app/profile/amyhoy.bsky.social/post/3la6iaxohs22x

#theaicon #aihype

"Thinking Machines lagged OpenAI and other rivals in releasing products, and was struggling to raise new funding at an eye-popping $50 billion valuation. The men had urged Ms. Murati to strike a deal — Meta, the owner of Facebook and Instagram, had discussed buying Thinking Machines, and Ms. Murati had developed closer ties with the chief executive of Anthropic, a leading A.I. company — but no transaction had resulted"

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/22/technology/thinking-machines-ai-startup-openai.html

#ai #bubble #aihype

"Thinking Machines lagged OpenAI and other rivals in releasing products, and was struggling to raise new funding at an eye-popping $50 billion valuation. The men had urged Ms. Murati to strike a deal — Meta, the owner of Facebook and Instagram, had discussed buying Thinking Machines, and Ms. Murati had developed closer ties with the chief executive of Anthropic, a leading A.I. company — but no transaction had resulted"

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/22/technology/thinking-machines-ai-startup-openai.html

#ai #bubble #aihype

A hidden cost of all this #AIHype is opportunity cost. I'm sure that Notion could actually fix expanding the menu on the left to show the currently open page when it's more than 2 levels deep. You stuff that actually frustrates users every day. But they're probably too busy being the new "AI workplace."

"We believe that language is a device to increase people’s “AI” literacy, helping them make informed choices about technology acceptance.

A more deliberate and thoughtful way forward is to talk about “AI” systems in terms of what we use systems to do, often specifying input and/or output. That is, talk about functionalities that serve our purposes, rather than “capabilities” of the system. Rather than saying a model is “good at” something (suggesting the model has skills) we can talk about what it is “good for”. Who is using the model to do something, and what are they using it to do?

It takes effort to swim upstream against anthropomorphizing language embedded in commonly-used technical terms and popular discourse, both in recognizing the language at all but also in finding suitable alternatives. Whether we are participating in local discussions making decisions for our workplaces, schools or communities or writing for broad audiences we share a responsibility to create and use empowering metaphors rather than misleading language that embeds the tech companies’ marketing pitches."

https://www.techpolicy.press/we-need-to-talk-about-how-we-talk-about-ai/

#AI #GenerativeAI #LLMs #AIHype #Anthropomorphization #AILiteracy

"We believe that language is a device to increase people’s “AI” literacy, helping them make informed choices about technology acceptance.

A more deliberate and thoughtful way forward is to talk about “AI” systems in terms of what we use systems to do, often specifying input and/or output. That is, talk about functionalities that serve our purposes, rather than “capabilities” of the system. Rather than saying a model is “good at” something (suggesting the model has skills) we can talk about what it is “good for”. Who is using the model to do something, and what are they using it to do?

It takes effort to swim upstream against anthropomorphizing language embedded in commonly-used technical terms and popular discourse, both in recognizing the language at all but also in finding suitable alternatives. Whether we are participating in local discussions making decisions for our workplaces, schools or communities or writing for broad audiences we share a responsibility to create and use empowering metaphors rather than misleading language that embeds the tech companies’ marketing pitches."

https://www.techpolicy.press/we-need-to-talk-about-how-we-talk-about-ai/

#AI #GenerativeAI #LLMs #AIHype #Anthropomorphization #AILiteracy

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The Colonization of Confidence https://sightlessscribbles.com/the-colonization-of-confidence/

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#AI #AIHype #AISlop #LLM

@firefoxwebdevs It's not only about trust. It's also the question how Firefox wants to be part of destroying our climate and water ressources in a time of #climateEmergency and growing #desertification thanks to #datacenters needed by the #AIHype!

Software that contributes to this destruction, even though it could work without it, is not an option for me. If it forces me to use such functions, I consider it even criminal. Firefox/the CEO wants AI.

#climateAction

@jaffathecake

One of my favorite audiobook publishers, Podium Audio, hinted at over and over and over again, that they would love to eventually get into the AI narration space and I don’t have any words of anger anymore. I just hate this whole timeline. Just fucking stop it. You look pothetic even mentioning AI narrators in an interview about your company. Just stop it. Can we start bullying companies because these CEOs are just pothetic. https://www.youtube.com/watch?si=9uAB4mRceo0vK8pO&v=pfZNAIsPZR4&feature=youtu.be #AI #AIHype

One of my favorite audiobook publishers, Podium Audio, hinted at over and over and over again, that they would love to eventually get into the AI narration space and I don’t have any words of anger anymore. I just hate this whole timeline. Just fucking stop it. You look pothetic even mentioning AI narrators in an interview about your company. Just stop it. Can we start bullying companies because these CEOs are just pothetic. https://www.youtube.com/watch?si=9uAB4mRceo0vK8pO&v=pfZNAIsPZR4&feature=youtu.be #AI #AIHype